Profile: Simon Smith

THE Saucy Fish Co’s head of brand Simon Smith has fulfilled a secret ambition of his this year.

He is beaming as he tells me that the Grimsby-born company, which was launched in early 2010, has made it on to Britain’s ‘CoolBrands’ list, which is topped by the likes of Apple, Aston Martin and Rolex, and includes other food brands such as Green & Blacks and Ben & Jerry’s.

The Saucy Fish Co’s inclusion in the index, which follows a vote by a combination of 3,000 consumers and a panel of “key influencers”, marks the first time ever a fish brand has been named a ‘CoolBrand’ since the initiative launched in 2001.

For Smith, who has years of experience in branding, having previously worked for GlaxoSmithKline and Haagen-Dazs, the accolade is important recognition for his work.

“I’m over the moon”, said Smith. “I’ve always known that achieving CoolBrands recognition has been a huge indicator of success for a brand, and for that reason it has been one of my ambitions for the brand ever since it was first conceived.”

Today, The Saucy Fish Co has an annual turnover of £35m and its portfolio of fish-based products are sold in major retailers such as Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons and Ocado. The brand is part of the Icelandic Group, which employs more than 700 people in Grimsby across three sites.

So how has Smith managed to make fish ‘cool’? When he joined Icelandic Group’s UK operations in Grimsby in 2009, he was tasked with finding out how best to get consumers eating fish at home.

A major piece of research was undertaken with the findings suggesting that while cost, health benefits and sustainability were all associated with fish, lack of convenience and lack of inspiration were most often mentioned. “So they want to eat fish but they don’t know what to do with it,” said Smith.

Three different sets of consumers were identified and labelled ‘fish fanatics’, ‘fish wannabes’ and ‘fish frighteners’.

“Fish fanatics are people who really love fish, they are probably pretty confident cooking from scratch, buy from a fishmonger or fish counter in a supermarket from time to time... but even they sometimes want some convenience. They also want to feel they have had a hand in the food preparation themselves,” said Smith.

“Fish wannabes are people who enjoy fish and they probably eat it when out in a restaurant but are not confident at all about eating it at home, and fish frighteners are people that know they should be eating fish but they really don’t like having a natural piece of fish on a plate and the closest thing they get to is a fish finger.”

The Saucy Fish Co, which was founded by Smith, has launched products targeting all three types of consumers, with its range including fish and a sauce, a foil baked bag range, and ‘melt in the middle’ fish cakes.

“So it was about motivating those three different groups and how to overcome the barriers that they had to cooking fish which were about convenience and knowing what to put with it, and then really tackling the other factor which was when consumers looked at a fish fixture they saw a sea of white plastic trays which weren’t very inspiring.”

Fish is generally eaten by reasonably affluent people, says Smith, and the decision tends to made by women. “These are people who like to engage emotionally with the products that they buy and it was really clear that the industry hadn’t done a very good job previously of making people feel good about it.”

Smith added: “There’s an awful lot of people who think that you can just create a brand by thinking up a name and sticking it on a pack. That’s not a brand. It has got to flow through everything you do and has got to communicate with consumers at all the right touch points and in the right way.”

Smith, who grew up in Devon, first got a taste for selling and branding while working at GlaxoSmithKline in its consumer brands division on Lucozade, Ribena and Horlicks. He had previously worked as a singles buyer at a record shop in Exeter, a job he took at the age of 18.

In 1992, Smith moved to Haagen-Dazs in London where he launched the ice cream brand into the UK market. “I saw a brand really go through a full cycle from young start-up in the UK, obviously it was very established in the USA, but very much a start-up UK brand to being a very well-established brand with lots of other people coming in to try and copy and follow them.”

He spent 10 years at Haagen-Dazs and parent company Diageo, before moving in 2002 to take up a board position within the Northern Foods Fox’s Biscuit business as marketing director. It was the position at Fox’s that brought Smith up North. “I’ve been really lucky throughout my life I’ve worked with either brands or products that hold a fairly special place in people’s hearts.

“Food is really emotive so I’ve worked in soft drinks which people love then went to ice cream which people absolutely love. I thought ice cream was the pinnacle but when you start researching cakes and biscuits with consumers, boy do they love it, and fish is really exciting because actually out of all the categories that I’ve worked in you’ve got a product there which is seen as both indulgent and healthy and there aren’t many of those around.”

So, what’s next for The Saucy Fish Co? “Our next move is going to be about helping people eat fish in different mindsets. For instance, there’s a lot of fish consumed in ready meals. Saucy is not going to do a ready meal because that territory is already well covered by supermarket own labels.

“We are going to be doing something around that more completed meal but it’s not just a ready meal.”

Meanwhile, the company is expanding its global reach. It is already in Norway, Switzerland, Hong Kong and Singapore; it will also be launching in the United States in a matter of weeks.

The Saucy Fish Co, which sources its fish sustainably from Scotland, Norway and Iceland, is cash positive, said Smith, despite the huge level of investment undertaken in the last few years.

“Since Saucy was launched we’ve invested in new products, new manufacturing lines and we’ve grown the workforce, so the factory in Laforey Road in Grimsby that was really the birthplace of Saucy.

“Going forward we have a programme of investment for the other two sites to enable us to continue to meet the demand that we’ve created.”

In its heyday, Grimsby was the largest fishing port in the world. The industry has suffered a massive decline since then, but the town is still serving up fish to consumers in the UK and beyond via The Saucy Fish Co.

“It is all Grimsby produced and there’s an immense amount of pride about it in the town as well,” said Smith.

Simon Smith Factfile

Title: Head of brand and founder of The Saucy Fish Co.

Date of birth: 26/09/1962

Lives: Stamford Bridge, near York.

Education: Exmouth Comprehensive School, Devon.

First job: Sold apples at the end of my father’s drive.

Favourite holiday destination: St Tropez.

Favourite film: Trading Places.

Favourite song: Bobby Womack – Across 110th Street.

Last book read: Summer’s Lease, by John Mortimer.

Car driven: VW Touareg.

Most proud of: My family and The Saucy Fish Co.